Comparative Evaluation of Microsurgery vs Conventional Surgical Technique of Gingival Depigmentation

Plain-language summary

Gingiva being the most frequently pigmented tissue of the oral cavity challenges a lot of people with an esthetic concern. Increased production of melanin, a pigment produced by the melanocytes present in the basal and suprabasal cell layers of the epithelium leads to the hyper-pigmented appearance. Over the decades many non-surgical as well as surgical techniques have been developed to manage the melanin induced hyper-pigmentation of gingival tissue with comparable efficacies. Till date, the most common gingival depigmentation procedure with satisfactory results remains the conventional scalpel (#15 blade) method. Nowadays, minimally traumatising the surgical field and gaining maximum outputs with help of microscopy and microsurgical instruments has attained a level of utmost importance in surgical procedures including periodontal therapy. Improved results in terms of increased vascularization of the grafts, relatively better percentages of root coverage a significant increase in width and thickness of keratinized tissue, an improved esthetic outcome and decreased patient morbidity in cases of gingival recession treated via microsurgical approach have been observed and well documented. However, perusal of the literature available suggests that clinical outcomes and esthetic potential of the results of gingival depigmentation using principles of microsurgery is an area of interest that still needs to be explored further. This study is therefore aimed at evaluating and comparing the clinical, esthetic and patient-related outcomes of gingival depigmentation performed using microsurgery vs conventional surgical technique.

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